Trips and Food Safari: Salatiga

Salatiga is a pleasant little town, located in the middle part of Java, about 1.5 hours drive heading south from Semarang, the capital city of Jawa Tengah. This place is surrounded by two volcanoes, Mt. Merbabu and Mt. Telomoyo. The highland Salatiga has cool climate which makes it so comfortable for a relaxing holiday.

If you take a drive to Kopeng, somewhere along the way, you'll find a place to eat called "Fani". This place is quite popular because they serve only satay and rica-rica, a traditional Manado culinary, using unusual meats: porcupine, civet, wild cat, or dog!

Glosarry: landak=porcupine; luwak=civet (Paradoxurus sp1); garangan=toddy cat (Paradoxurus sp2); bajing=squirrel; blacan=fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus); RW is just a term for dog meat

We went there to taste those unusual meats. I didn't mind to taste them, but not for the dog meat. I was thinking to try squirrel meat and one of those wild cats. Unfortunally at that time, they only had porcupine and dog meat available. They said that this depends on what the hunters caught. Porcupine, I think, was the most common animal found around the mountain in Salatiga as they were always available on the menu.

So, we just ordered porcupine satay and porcupine rica-rica. Porcupine meat had hard texture and specific smell. Well, it was quite tiring to chew this rubbery meat. I think, that would be my first and last time to eat porcupine.

Another interesting place to eat you can find along the way is a place that sells rabbit satay. People said that eating rabbit meat can warm your body. I think that's the reason why in Indonesia, rabbit satay is commonly found around highland areas, as it can be useful to combat cold temperature in that areas. So, we also stopped by to try rabbit satay. This one was not bad at all! Indeed, rabbit meat is so tender and tasty; doesn't have strong smell; and tastes really like chicken! Well, at least that's what everyone told me before about rabbit meat, and now I must absolutely agree with them.

After having such meaty lunch, we stopped by a strawberry farm to have fresh strawberries. There are plenty of organic strawberry farms around. There, you can pick strawberries by yourself and they will charge you based on the total weight. We bought 2 small boxes and finished them all while sitting and enjoying the fresh atmosphere around the pretty farm.

Spending night downtown Salatiga would not be complete without having traditional dessert "ronde", the sticky rice ball with grounded peanut inside, served with hot sweet ginger soup and dried fruits. The ginger soup also makes your body warm at highland cool temperature at night. Almost all along the road sides you can find ronde sellers. It would be nice to have a bowl of hot ronde while enjoying night life activities among Salatigan people.

Other things that you can try when visiting Salatiga are: Nasi koyor, the traditional mixed rice with beef and coconut milk sauce; tingting gepuk or grounded peanut candy; and beef abon or herbs-flavoured roasted beef.